Personalized Resume & Cover Letter Tips
Berkeley Career Engagement has extensive resources on resumes and cover letters for all UC Berkeley students that you may be very familiar with. Did you know they also offer drop-in Career Peer Advising?
Career Peer Advisors are undergraduate students trained by career educators on aspects of the job and internship process, as well as graduate and professional school application processes. They hold drop-in hours every day, meaning you don’t need a formal appointment to get advice, regardless of wherever you are in your application process.
I’d never been to an appointment before, but since I am starting to apply to various post-grad positions, I knew getting someone to review my resume was crucial. The schedule and system set up around peer advising worked out well with my schedule and was a quick way to get the feedback I needed.
Peer Advisor Drop-Ins
No appointment is necessary, but there are specific hours where peer advisors are available and ready to help. Monday through Thursday, you can stop by the Berkeley Career Engagement office at 2240 Bancroft Way, and on Friday they offer virtual drop-in hours. Make sure to check their Peer Advisors webpage beforehand, just in case hours have changed for any given week.
You don’t necessarily need to prepare anything before you meet with a peer advisor. If you’re wondering what kind of resources apply to you and your current situation, they can help introduce you to helpful tools and get you started. If you’re ready to review your resume or cover letter, have a copy of it ready to go and some specific questions to make the most of your session.
Entrance to the Berkeley Career Engagement Office, located at 2440 Bancroft Way.
What Is The Appointment Like?
I attended a virtual drop-in session on Friday because it worked best with my schedule. I was placed in a Zoom waiting room for a few minutes before being connected with the next available peer advisor. After I was connected and we did brief introductions, she asked me what I was looking to get help with that day. I told her I was applying for post-grad positions, and I shared a link to my resume and we started reviewing it together.
It’s incredibly helpful (and necessary) to get a second pair of eyes to review your resume. I’d been staring at mine for so long that I didn’t notice a lot of what she pointed out. She advised me to have a balance between white spaces on the page—in other words, to not leave singular words or small phrases on a bullet point and waste that precious space. We also went over formatting and examples of resumes that were applicable to me and the positions I was applying for.
Answers To All Your Questions
Berkeley Career Engagement offers a lot of other opportunities to get one-on-one help, from meeting with Career Educators to scheduling pre-law advising appointments. You can read how Samantha, a recent Cal grad, benefitted from meeting with a career counselor in Hi, I Did Career Counseling.
It’s never too early or too late to start using the resources offered through Berkeley Career Engagement! And if you’re not sure where to start, attend a Career Peer Advisor drop-in session—they’re here to help answer your questions about getting started, too.
Melissa Mora-Gonzalez, Class of 2025, is majoring in English and minoring in conservation and resource studies.
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